4. The play "The Thunderstorm"
5. The play "Dowry"
1. Periods and characteristics of the work of A.N. Ostrovsky.
Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky (1823-1886) is one of the greatest playwrights of the second half of the 19th century V. He wrote 54 plays, each of which reflected the versatility of his talent. Ostrovsky’s creative path can be characterized as follows:
✓ first period(1847-1860), having the following characteristics:
Use of Gogolian traditions;
Mastering the advanced aesthetics of his time;
Expanding the theme and strengthening the social urgency of the play, as, for example, in the plays “The Kindergarten” (1858), “A Festive Sleep - Before Dinner” (1857), “The Characters Didn’t Mesh” (1858), “The Thunderstorm” (1856);
Creation of the plays “Your People – Let’s Be Numbered!”, “Poor Bride”, “Don’t Get in Your Own Sleigh”, the comedy “Poverty is not a Vice”, the drama “Don’t Live the Way You Want”;
✓ second period(1860-1875), having the following characteristics:
Appeal to the traditions of historical dramaturgy of A. S. Pushkin, increased interest in the country’s past;
Conviction in the importance of literary coverage of history, as it helps to better understand the present;
Revealing the spiritual greatness of the Russian people, their patriotism, asceticism;
Creation of historical plays: "Kozma Zakharyich Minin-Sukhoruk" (1862), "Voevoda" (1865), "Dmitry the Pretender and Vasily Shuisky" (1867), "Tushino" (1867), "Vasilisa Melentyeva" (1868);
The use of new images and motifs that reflected both new social relations in the country and the essence of the worldview of the author himself;
Development of the genre of chronicle and poetic tragedy;
Continuation of the traditions of Pushkin and Gogol in developing the theme of the little man in such plays as “Jokers” (1864), “The Deep”, “Labor Bread”;
Development of the genre of satirical comedy, which reflected Russian life during the period of bourgeois reforms through the development of the motif of contrasting “wolves” and “sheep,” that is, characters - businessmen, predators and their disadvantaged victims, in plays such as “Simplicity is enough for every wise man” (1868), “Mad Money” (1869), “Forest” (1870), “Snow Maiden” (1873) and in the comedy “Wolves and Sheep” (1875), created in the third period of the author’s work;
✓ third period(late 70s - early 80s of the 19th century), having the following characteristics:
Continuation of the development of the themes and motifs outlined at the previous stages: satire on Russian bourgeois reality, themes of the little man;
Deepening psychologism in the study and disclosure of characters and in the analysis of the environment surrounding the heroes of Ostrovsky’s plays;
Creating the foundations of Chekhov's dramaturgy in such plays as "Dowry", "Slave Women", "It Shines, but Doesn't Warm", "Not of This World".
2. The originality of the creativity of A.N. Ostrovsky.
The originality and importance of Ostrovsky’s work are as follows:
✓ innovation in themes, genres, literary style and images of plays;
✓ historicity: the events and plots of his plays cover a huge historical period in the development of Russia from Ivan the Terrible to the second half of the 19th century;
✓ everyday fullness, the immersion of the plot in family, private relationships, since it is in them that all the vices of society are manifested, and through revealing the essence of these family relationships, the author also reveals common human vices;
✓ revealing the conflict between two “parties”: older and younger, rich and poor, willful and submissive, etc., and this conflict is one of the central ones in Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy;
✓ organic connection between drama and the epic principle;
✓ widespread use of traditions of folklore and fairy tales both in titles ("It's not all Maslenitsa for the cat", "Don't sit in your own sleigh", "Truth is good, but happiness is better") and in plots ("Snow Maiden"), and a proverb often defines not only the title, but the whole concept and ideas of the play;
✓ the use of "speaking" names and surnames of heroes, often dictated folklore images and the literary traditions of previous authors (Tigry Lvovich Lyutov from the play “There wasn’t a penny, but suddenly it was altyn”);
✓ individualization, richness and brightness of the language of the characters and the plays themselves.
Ostrovsky’s work and the dramatic traditions he developed had a strong influence on subsequent generations of playwrights and writers of the 19th and 20th centuries, and in particular on such authors as L.N. Tolstoy, A.P. Chekhov, A. I. Yuzhin-Sumbatov, V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, E.P. Karpov, A.M. Gorky, A.S. Neverov, B.S. Romashov, B.A. Lavrenev, N.F. Pogodin, L.M. Leonov and others.
3. The play "Our people - we will be numbered!"
The play "Our People - Let's Be Numbered!", written in the first period of Ostrovsky's work, has the following peculiarities:
✓ denunciation of despotism, tyranny and self-interest;
✓ orientation towards Gogolian traditions in literature, which is manifested in highlighting the theme of money through the description of property relations between the characters with a predominance of their thirst for profit;
✓ use of traditions" natural school", which is manifested through a branched image of the life of the merchant class;
✓ at the same time, a departure from Gogol’s poetics of the study of the character and principles of the natural school, which is manifested in the following:
Focusing not only on revealing the psychology of the hero and describing his everyday life, but also on research and analysis of the features of the social environment around him;
The appearance of characters who are not related to the central conflict, but contribute to a vivid depiction of merchant life;
Refusal to deeply consider the facts of reality, and the desire to generalize them;
A change in the essence and attitude towards a love affair, which is subordinated to the main theme - monetary relations of profit, and its occurrence among the heroes is dictated by material interest;
✓ the novelty of the composition, the essence of which is the development of a story of one type at different stages;
✓ the novelty and originality of the plot, which is built on the principle of a swing, that is, the characters alternately rise and fall in their position;
✓ special expressiveness and individualization of the characters’ language, which very accurately expresses the comic in this play.
4. The play "The Thunderstorm"
Ostrovsky's play "The Thunderstorm" is one of the most interesting and popular in Russian drama. The play is based on Ostrovsky’s real impressions from a trip along the Upper Volga in 1856; the morals of the merchant classes, the customs of patriarchal antiquity, and the most beautiful and rich natural landscapes of the Volga were expressed in it. The dramatic action of the play takes place in the fictional city of Kalinov, which, according to the author's plan, is located on the banks of the Volga. "Thunderstorm" has the following artistic features :
✓ organic, masterful use of paintings of the Volga landscape, which perform the following important artistic functions:
They bring bright colors to the description of the location of the play, helping the reader to understand the situation as clearly and clearly as possible;
Compositionally they have great value, since they make the structure of the play complete, integral, starting and ending the action of the play with a steep river bank;
✓ plot and compositional originality, which is as follows:
The slowness of the pace of action at the beginning, which is due to the extensive exposition of the play, which fulfills the author’s most important task of acquainting the reader in as much detail as possible with the circumstances, life, morals, characters and conditions in which the action will subsequently unfold;
Introduction to the exhibition of several “minor” characters (Shapkin, Feklusha, Kudryash, etc.), who will subsequently play a crucial role in the unfolding of the conflict of the play;
The originality of the plot of the play, which lies in various variants of its definition, and at the same time we can call the plot of the play triple, including Kulagin’s condemning words at the beginning of the 1st act, which determine the development of social struggle in the play, Katerina’s dialogue with Varvara (act seven ) and Katerina’s last words in the second act, which finally determine the nature of her struggle;
Development in action of a social and individual line of struggle and two parallel love affairs (Katerina - Boris and Varvara - Kudryash);
The presence of “extra-fab” episodes, for example, the meeting of Kabanikha with Feklusha, which fulfill the function of completing the image of the “dark kingdom”;
Development of the tension of dramatic action in each new act;
The climax in the middle of the play is in the 4th act, associated with the scene of repentance, and its function is to aggravate the heroine’s conflict with the environment;
The real denouement is in the 5th act, where both intrigues reach their conclusion;
Ring structure of the play: the events of the 1st and 5th acts take place in the same place;
✓ the originality, brightness and completeness of the images of the play by Katerina, Kabanikha, Dikiy, Boris, each of which has a certain integral character;
✓ the use of the technique of contrasting characters (Kabanikha and Dikoy and other characters), landscapes of the 1st and 4th acts, etc.;
✓ disclosure of the tragic circumstances of the life of an educated, spiritually filled person in the society of the “dark kingdom”;
✓ the symbolism of the title of the play, which is present in the play both as a natural phenomenon and as a kind of symbol expressing the idea of the entire work, and here there is a echo with Griboyedov’s “Woe from Wit”, Lermontov’s “Hero of Our Time”, and as having a figurative meaning, personifying a thunderstorm , raging in Katerina’s soul.
5. The play "Dowry"
The play "Dowry" (1878) is Ostrovsky's fortieth work and opens a new - the third stage in his work. The play has the following artistic features:
✓ echoes "Thunderstorm" on the following points:
The scene is small towns on the banks of the Volga;
The main theme and main characteristics of the residents are monetary motives, benefits;
Both main heroines do not correspond to the world in which they live, they are above it and come into conflict with this world, and this is their tragedy, the end of both heroines is the same - death, freeing them from the vices and injustice of the world around them;
✓ has significant differences from "Thunderstorm", which consist in a change social status, morals and characters of the heroes, who are now modern, educated industrialists, and not ignorant merchants, are interested in art, active, ambitious, strive for development, but nevertheless have their own, albeit different, but also vices;
✓ has a connection with the “Snow Maiden”, which is expressed in the characters of both main heroines - Larisa Ogudalova and Snegurochka, attracted by the love of nature with a strong will and with the same strong passions, and this love is the cause of the death of both heroines;
✓ In terms of genre, it is a socio-psychological drama;
✓ The techniques developed by Ostrovsky in this play influenced the work of A.P. Chekhov, and among these techniques the following can be named:
The development of such motifs as the pistol that was previously hung on the wall, the dinner during which the fate of the heroes is decided;
An in-depth analysis of the human soul;
Objective assessment and characteristics of heroes;
Symbolism of images;
Revealing the disorder of life in general.
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"I've been working all my life."
Slide 1 and 2.
Lesson objectives: introduce students to a new author; determine the originality of his work, expressed in reflecting the problems of the era; show innovation and traditions in the work of A.N. Ostrovsky, the originality of his style.
Slide 3.
Lesson progress
I. Teacher lecture with presentation.
Slide 4.
1. Pages of the history of Russian theater before A.N. Ostrovsky (information). Originality of topics dramatic works; characteristics of heroes (class); principles of character development. Predecessors of A. Ostrovsky: D.I. Fonvizin, A.S. Griboyedov, A.S. Pushkin, N.V. Gogol.
Slide 5.
2. Features of Ostrovsky's plays. A new hero whom Russian literature had never known before. “He revealed to the world a man of a new formation: a merchant-Old Believer and a merchant-capitalist, a merchant in an army coat and a merchant in a three-piece suit, traveling abroad and doing his own business. Ostrovsky opened wide the door to a world hitherto locked behind high fences from prying eyes of others” - wrote V.G. Marantsman. Ostrovsky's new hero determines the uniqueness of the problems and themes of the plays, and the characteristics of the characters' characters.
Slides 6-13
3. Pages of the playwright’s biography: family, Zamoskvorechye, study, service. Life in Zamoskvorechye, work in the conscientious and commercial courts, where the main “clients” are merchants, allowed the playwright to observe the life of the merchants. All this was reflected in Ostrovsky’s plays, the characters of which seemed to be taken from life. The writer’s incredible ability to work contributed to the birth of 48 works, in which 547 characters act.
Slides 14-19
4. Beginning of literary activity.
The creative path of A. Ostrovsky.
The first work - the play "The Insolvent Debtor" - appeared in 1847 in the newspaper "Moscow City Listok". In 1850, the same work, revised by the author, was published in the magazine "Moskvityanin". Then it was under arrest for 10 years, because in it, according to Dobrolyubov, “... human dignity, personal freedom, faith in love and happiness and the shrine of honest labor were thrown into dust and brazenly trampled by tyrants.”
“This is what I am doing now, combining the sublime with the comic,” Ostrovsky wrote in 1853, defining the emergence of a new hero, a hero with a “warm heart,” honest, straightforward. One after another, the plays “Poverty is not a vice”, “Don’t sit in your own sleigh”, “Profitable place”, “Forest”, “Warm heart”, “Talents and admirers”, “Guilty without guilt” and others appeared. “And such a spirit has become in me: I’m not afraid of anything! It seems that if you cut me into pieces, I’ll still stand on my own,” says the heroine of the play “The Pupil.” “I’m not afraid of anything” - that’s the main thing in Ostrovsky’s new hero.
Slide 20
"The Thunderstorm" (1860) is a play about an awakening, protesting individual who no longer wants to live according to laws that suppress the individual.
Slide 21
“The Forest” (1870) - the play raises eternal questions of human relationships, tries to solve the problem of moral and immoral.
Slide 22
"The Snow Maiden (1873) is a look at the ancient, patriarchal, fairy-tale world, in which material relations also dominate (Bobyl and Bobylikha).
Slide 23
"Dowry" (1879) - the playwright's view 20 years later on the problems raised in the drama "The Thunderstorm".
II. Student performances. Individual assignments for the lesson.
Slides 24-38
1. Features of Ostrovsky's style (Individual tasks)
- Speaking surnames;
- The unusual presentation of the characters in the poster, which determines the conflict that will develop in the play;
- Specific author's remarks;
- The role of the scenery presented by the author in determining the space of the drama and the time of action
- The originality of names (often from Russian proverbs and sayings);
- Folklore moments;
- Parallel consideration of comparable heroes;
- The significance of the hero's first remark;
- “Prepared appearance”, the main characters do not appear immediately, others talk about them first;
- Originality speech characteristics heroes.
Final questions
Slide 39
- Is it possible to talk about the modernity of Ostrovsky’s plays? Prove your point.
- Why do modern theaters constantly turn to the plays of the playwright?
- Why is it so difficult to “modernize” the plays of A. N. Ostrovsky?
III. Lesson summary.
Slides 40-42
A.N. Ostrovsky turned a page unfamiliar to the viewer, bringing a new hero onto the stage - a merchant. Before him, Russian theatrical history included only a few names. The playwright made a huge contribution to the development of Russian theater. His work, continuing the traditions of Fonvizin, Griboedov, Pushkin, Gogol, is distinguished by its innovation in the depiction of heroes, in the language of characters and in the social and moral problems raised.
Homework:
Drama "Thunderstorm". History of creation, system of images, techniques for revealing the characters' characters. The originality of the conflict. The meaning of the name.
Group 1. The history of the play. Student reports (homework with additional reading).
Group 2. The meaning of the title of the play "The Thunderstorm".
Group 3. System characters plays
Group 4. Features of revealing the characters' characters.
Ostrovsky is the first Russian classical playwright. There were poets before him. Writers...but not playwrights
Ostrovsky wrote 48 of his own plays, several with his students, and translated several plays (The Taming of the Shrew and Goldoni's Coffee House). In total, he gave the theater 61 plays.
Before Ostrovsky, two children of his parents died in infancy. Their whole family was spiritual. My uncle is a priest, my father also graduated from the seminary and theological academy, but became a lawyer. And mother and daughter, make some bread. My uncle advised me to name the child Alexander (defender of life). All the heroes of Ostrovsky's plays have iconic names! There are invented ones, and there are also ordinary ones. Katerina (eternally pure, immaculate) he believes in her innocence! Although she commits 2 mortal sins. And in the dowry he will name the heroine Larisa (the seagull). Only through names can one understand the character of the characters and the author’s attitude towards him.
Another important moment of his life was his work in the courts. He did not graduate from university and strived for a free life. The father protested. He was rich and bought houses and wanted his son to follow in his footsteps. But Ostrovsky dreamed only of the theater. And when he left the university, his father did not let him idle and got him a job as a scribe in a conscientious (arbitration) court (the one who paid the most won.) And then as a small clerk in a commercial office. He had seen enough of different things and this pushed him to creativity. “Bankrupt” is a play that was born in this way.
“The Picture of Family Happiness” - the first play published in 1847
This is a sketch of merchant life. A world of deception and hypocrisy on which the entire society is built. After the two-volume set of plays, Dobrolyubov will say that all relationships in Ostrovsky’s plays are built on two principles - the family principle (the head is the oppressor) and the material one (the one who owns the money)
end of lecture 56.41
Ostrovsky is not the way we are used to imagining him in a robe with fur. They had a company of 5 people (Apollo Grigoriev - poet, prose writer, theorist; Tertsy Filippov, Almazov, Edelson). They all worked for Pogodin (a university professor) in the magazine “Moskvityanin.” Apollo Grigoriev wrote an epigram to Ostrovsky: Half Falstaff, half Shakespeare, dissipation and genius are a blind combination.
He was very loving. Agafya Ivanovna, an unmarried wife and an illiterate woman, did not want to marry him so as not to disgrace him. They had children. But at this time he fell in love with the actress Nikulina-Kositskaya. And he even proposed to her, but she refused. Then he started an affair with the young actress Vasilyeva. And she also had children. Agafya Ivanovna could not bear this and died, and then he married Vasilyeva.
And he loved to drink with his friends and sing together great. Had success with this
In 1849 he wrote “Bankrupt,” a tough play in the tradition of the natural school. It is more earthly than Gogol's plays. It was read at Pogodin’s house. Countess Rostopchina arranged this reading and invited Gogol there. There is a legend that Gogol later said that talent can be felt in everything. There were some technical shortcomings, but this will come with practice, but in general they are all talented. But the censorship did not allow the play to pass, citing the fact that there was not a single positive person. All are scoundrels. Pogodin said. So that Ostrovsky would change it a little, rename it and submit it again. He did just that. renamed it “Our People, We Will Be Numbered,” and finely signed Bankrupt, and indeed the play was allowed. And in 1950, in the 5th issue of the Moskvitian magazine, it was published. They immediately began to stage it in the Maly Theater. Shumsky - Podkholuzin, Prov Sadovsky - Bolshov. But before the premiere, a ban on the production came. It was delayed for 11 years! It was first staged in 1961. The composition has changed. Prov Sadovsky played Podkholuzin (Shumsky fell ill), Tishka was played by his son Michal Provovich, Shchepkin played Bolshoi.
Three images of Podkholuzin, Bolshov and Tishka - three different stages of the development of capitalism in Russia
Bolshov, semi-literate, gray, not thinking about anyone, turns out to be a victim of his darkness
Podkholuzin understands that you can’t just steal (like Bolshov) and he arranges a marriage with Lipochka and legally appropriates the capital of the Bolshoi.
Tishka is a servant boy. He has 3 coins. And he manages these coins. One for sweets, one to lend on interest, the third to hide just in case. This kind of disposal of coins is already the distant future of Russia
This play stands apart. This is the only spicy one where everyone is bad. Life broke the author and he wrote various plays. He understood that a person contains both good and bad and began to write more voluminously, bringing characters out of life. He'll tell you later. There is no need to invent stories, they are all around us. His plays will be based on the stories of actors, friends, court proceedings in cinema e Moscow court where is his estate Shchelyk O in. There he wrote all his plays.
Winter is when I conceive the plot, spring and summer are when I process it, and in the fall I bring it to the theater. Sometimes more than a play a year. Burdin, his high school friend, who became a bad actor, but a good politician, put his plays through censorship in St. Petersburg, played there main role and then the play was freely shown in Moscow. If it was staged in St. Petersburg, there is no need to obtain censorship in Moscow.
The second play, “The Poor Bride,” also came under a censorship ban. He wrote it for 2 years.
After the ban on “we will count our own people,” Ostrovsky came under double supervision (3 departments - the Buturlinsky Committee - political supervision and police supervision - monitored Ostrovsky’s morality) This was the time of the reign of Nicholas 1. These were difficult years and his plays did not appear on stage.
53-55 is 3 years when Ostrovsky made a certain tactical move that saved him as a playwright. He wrote 3 plays with such a Slavophile slant (Slavophiles (Aksakov, Pogodin) and Westerners (Herzen, Ogarev, Raevsky) - two movements that fought in the 1st half of the 19th century for the future of Russia.)
“Don’t get into your own sleigh,” “Poverty is not a vice,” “don’t live the way you want.” These 3 plays are not very deep, but they give the author a path to the stage.
Ostrovsky has 2 types plays - titles proverbs and then it is clear how they will develop and how things will end and with an unpredictable title, by which it is difficult to figure out the play right away (Thunderstorm, Dowry, Mad Money)
"Poverty is not a vice"
Gordey Tortsov (proud) - ashamed of his brother
We love Tortsov (beloved) - a drunkard, a fence-sitter, he has nowhere to live.
The play is performed during Christmas time. Korshunov arrives to marry Gordey’s daughter and Lyubim helps Lyubushka avoid this terrible fate. (Korshunov killed his previous wife, ruined whom?) Gordey is a tyrant. To the question - who will you give your daughter to? He answers - Yes, at least for Mitka! (This is a clerk who has mutual love with Lyubushka) This seems to be a joke, but Lyubim helps young people find happiness. This play was a resounding success.
“Don’t sit in your own sleigh” was the first play that came out. They played in a large theater with a large gathering. Nikulina-Kositskaya played Avdotya Maksimovna, Prov Sadovsky played the Bolshoi.
It was unusual to see the actress in a simple chintz dress. Usually the actresses came out in luxurious outfits. It was a complete success.
The next premiere was “Poverty is not a Vice” (1854) and it was a deafening premiere. The audience liked P. Sadovsky so much that Apollo Grigoriev wrote in his article: Wider the road, Love Tortsov is coming!
But he also wrote a whole poem about Sadovsky in this role.
In the literature you can find a statement. That Shchepkin did not accept Ostrovsky. They had difficult relationships. Ivanova doesn't believe this. Shchepkin could not be on bad terms with anyone at all. Here two eras collided. Herzen wrote that Shchepkin was not theatrical at the theater. We must understand. That the degree of non-theatricality is dialectical and flexible. When we listen to recordings of the Moscow Art Theater today, we hear theatricality and exaggeration. Each generation puts forward its own measure of simplicity. Shchepkin, although not a theatrical person at the theater, still lives in a romantic era. And his style of perceiving life is romantic.
P. Sadovsky creates Tortsov in a very naturalistic way (dirty, drunk, not good) and Apollo Grigoriev praises him for this. But Shchepkin does not accept such a Tortsov.
In 1954, Shchepkin is in power and may well say to a younger actor, move over, I myself will play Lyubim Tortsov. But he doesn't. He writes to Nizhny Novgorod and asks to take it on a bike. Post Ostrovsky’s play, learn it, and I’ll come and play Lyubim Tortsov. This is what happens. He goes and plays. For P. Sadovsky, social is important. Tortsov’s position, his dirt, for Shchepkin his moral height and inner purity are important. He plays this character romantically. He raises him above the world that Sadovsky reveals.
Shchepkin also played the Bolshoi. He softens and justifies him. In the finale I feel sorry for him. In 1961, the censorship, which allowed the production, demands punishment of negative characters and the theater introduces a policeman, who in the finale comes to arrest Podkholuzin. And Sadovsky takes the policeman by the elbow, leads him to the front of the stage and gives him a wad of money. This is an actor’s mise-en-scène, but thereby he corrects the interference of censorship, the government, and the management of the imperial theaters, who wanted to reduce the sound of the play.
In 1855, Nikolai-1 died and Ostrovsky benefited from this. And the oppression of his reign from 25 to 55 will subside. After the Decembrist uprising, he saw conspiracy everywhere and in everything. The arrests and strict supervision will all pass now. His son Alexander -2 comes to power. A lot is changing. Ostrovsky is released from supervision and goes to St. Petersburg. He is met by all the writers (among them Tolstoy and Kraevsky and Nekrasov and Saltykov-Shchedrin), and a gala dinner is arranged. They lay a wreath, the ribbons of which are held by Goncharov and Turgenev. He is offered to publish in Otechestvennye zapiski and Sovremennik. Then Ostrovsky goes on an expedition along the Volga, organized by the Russian Geographical Society (He compiled a dictionary of Volga words, collected plots and conceived a trilogy, but he would write only one play, “Dream on the Volga”) In general, in many of Ostrovsky’s plays there is the Volga. (fictional by Mr. Kalinov in Thunderstorm, Dowry and Warm Heart)
In the 19th century there were many playwrights and drama models who composed a certain plot around love triangle. All these plays were of the same type. They were composed.
Ostrovsky gave the material the opportunity to develop, gave a volume that comes from life, even in proverb plays.
In the play “It’s not all Maslenitsa for cats,” the author will complete the development of the image of a tyrant merchant. He reveals such a character trait. The first time he talks about her is in the play “At Someone Else’s Feast, a Hangover” by Tit Titovich Bruskov - main character An illiterate merchant who has become rich does not allow his son Andrei to study, because he does not see the need for it. O1.28.31 it is in this play that this very concept will arise - tyrant. Then Ostrovsky uses this theme of tyranny in various social groups. In “The Pupil” the tyrant noblewoman Ulanbekova, in “The Forest” by Gurmyzhskaya, in “Profitable Place” by Yusov, in “The Thunderstorm” by Dikaya. But the main tyrants are the merchants. In “Warm Heart” Kuroslepov and Khlynov are wonderful figures. Kuroslepov - revenge on Prov Sadovsky. In “Dream on the Volga” there is a place when the governor falls asleep. And one day Sadovsky actually fell asleep in this place. Ostrovsky ridiculed him in Kuroslepov and assigned him this role. Kuroslepov only sleeps and eats.
Khlynov is a rich man, drinks, organizes games. He dresses up his people as robbers and goes out onto the highway to scare passers-by.
Developing this image of such a merchant comes to the play “Not everything is Maslenitsa for the cat” 01.31.54
There is a tyrant merchant Akhov. This is Ostrovsky's last tyrant merchant.
He woos poor dowry Agnia, she refuses and marries his nephew Hippolytus. And his nephew, threatening him with a knife, takes the money to marry Agnia. And his roommate and maid says that he got lost in his own room and began to misbehave. This is such a hyperbole, very important. He seems to be the ruler and cannot achieve anything. He asks the young people to sweep the yard. He’s ready to pay for the wedding, just submit to me. But they refuse. And he is confused...
The next play is “Mad Money” and the merchant Vasilkov, who combines his love for Lydia Cheboksarova with profit. It is important for him to marry her in order to rise into another social circle (she is a noblewoman).
Knurov and Vozhevatov in “The Dowry” play Larisa at toss in order to take her to Paris. These are no longer illiterate merchants. These are no longer tyrants, but capitalists. They are going to an industrial exhibition in Paris.
“The last victim” is the merchant-capitalist Pribytkov. He collects paintings. Yulia Tukina.
His paintings are only originals; he is going to listen to Pati (Italian calarature soprano superstar) at the opera. In the 1980s, this was already a familiar level for Russia. 01.35.50
Tretyakov collects Russian paintings. Shchukin collects impressionist paintings. Ryabushinsky publishes the magazine “Golden Fleece” 1.36.51 For this publication Russian. artists paint portraits of playwrights and actors (Serov - a portrait of Blok, Ulyanov - Meyerhold in the role of Pierrot from “The Showcase”). Bakhrushin collects theatrical relics. Mamontov will create a private Russian opera and educate Chaliapin. Morozov is associated with the art theater. He is a shareholder of the theater that was just born in 1998. In 1902, he built a building for them on Kamergersky Lane.
In Pribytkov, Ostrovsky outlined the features of these merchants and patrons of the arts. They spend money wisely. They are setting up Russia. Ultimately, all this goes to the state.
Most of Ostrovsky's plays are about merchants. But he pays great attention to the topic - the fate of a young woman. Beginning with The Poor Bride, Ostrovsky explores the position of women in Russian society. Marya Andreevna is so poor that at any moment she will lose her shelter and food. She is in love with Meric. He is weak-willed, lacking initiative, he loves her, but he cannot help, he has no money. And as a result, she marries Benivalyavsky, who chooses a girl who has nothing as his wife. This means that she will be completely dependent on him and he will tyrannize her. Marya Andreevna understands this, but she has no choice.
Nadya in The Kindergarten is also forced to get married. Ulanbekova gave her everything, and therefore disposed of her as property. Tyranila. She destined her to be the wife of a monster drunk, and thinks that Nadya’s high morality will benefit him and correct him. But Nadya runs to the island with Ulanbekova’s son and spends the night there. Then she says: there will be no further life. It's over.
Next on this list is Katerina in The Thunderstorm. She was born out of friendship with Nikulina-Kositskaya (about how she sailed away in a boat without oars and how she saw angels in a pillar of light - these are N-Kositskaya’s stories). But the actress herself is more multifaceted than Katerina. There is a lot of Varvara in her. She sings and has humor and enormous talent. Ostrovsky wrote Katerina for her. Varvara and Katerina are two sides of the same character. Katerina was given away without love. And it is difficult for her to love her husband. Tikhon under the rule of Kaban And hee speechless. If there had been a child, Boris would not have appeared in her life. But she could not get pregnant from a drunkard and a weakling. And Boris appears out of trouble and hopelessness. Kabanikhs were the name given to huge stones that were placed at crossroads. So that the triplets don't collide. So is Katerina’s mother-in-law. On the way you can’t go around everyone, you can’t go around them. She presses down with her weight. Katerina throws herself into the water not from pressure from her mother-in-law, but from Boris’s betrayal. He leaves her, cannot help, does not love her.
Who, lovingly, would wish his beloved a quick death? And he says that she should die quickly, so that she doesn’t suffer so much.
Katerina is a pious person. She falls to her knees in front of the fresco of the Last Judgment during a thunderstorm and repents. And maybe, having committed the first mortal sin, she punishes herself by committing the second mortal sin, in order to receive full punishment from God. Although Ostrovsky gives her a name that means purity.
Thunderstorm is a multifunctional name. She is present in everything. Not only in nature.
Next Larisa. She is unable to commit suicide. She chooses between dying or becoming a thing. Karandyshev wants to get married in order to rise in the eyes of society. Both Knurov and Vozhevatov play it like a thing. And in the end she will make a decision - if it’s a thing then expensive thing. Ostrovsky saves Larisa by dying at the hands of Karandyshev. And when he kills her, he treats her as a thing (so don’t get it from anyone).
Yulia Tugina is a widow who marries Pribytkov.
19th century - a woman must get married in order to survive. At the end of the 19th century, she had the opportunity to become a governess and become a companion. But this is also not good... a miserable existence. Dependency... these are already Chekhovian themes.
Ostrovsky finds another way out for women theater. In the 19th century, actresses already appeared in the theater. But there is such a law - if a nobleman becomes an actor, then he loses his affiliation with the nobility. And the merchant leaves the merchant guild. And the life of an actress is always questionable. You can buy it. In “Talents and Admirers” Ostrovsky will show Negina’s life in this way.
True, in his last play, “Guilty Without Guilt,” he writes a melodrama with a happy ending. There the actress rises above everyone. becomes great and dictates its own rules. But this is 84 year-end 19th century.
“The Snow Maiden” was born in Shchelykovo. There is nature, untouched forest. This is a play about the joy of life. About harmony in life. About the objective flow of life. Harmony should brighten up all tragedies. In the end, the heroes die. The Snow Maiden melted, Mizgir threw himself into the lake, disharmony just left this settlement. The Snow Maiden was a foreign, unusual beginning that invaded the settlement from a fairy tale. And Mizgir is a traitor, he abandoned Kupava. And when they die, harmony, peace and happiness come. The play was written for Fedotova. Ostrovsky often wrote plays for certain actors. Tolstoy laughed at him, and then he began to do the same himself.
He also wrote “Vasilisa Milentyev” for Fedotova 01.58.26
This play was invented by Gedeonov Jr. (director of the imperial theaters). Ostrovsky helped him bring this play to mind. Just like in “The Marriage of Belugin” and “Savage” there should be 2 names of the authors. These are plays written with students. Mostly with Solovyov.
Ostrovsky has a line young man with a university education. Which comes into life. This is Zhadov in “Profitable Place”. In “The Poor Bride,” Ostrovsky tried to create such an image of Merich. But this is his failure. Ostrovsky at one time tried to live in two projections of the realistic theater that he created and looked back into the romantic theater, through Merich. Two directions collided in the play and it became difficult.
Zhadov is a man without money, he follows a pure path. Ostrovsky says about him that he is like a decorated Christmas tree. He has nothing of his own. He brought all these ideals from the university, but did not suffer for them. That's why he does stupid things. Firstly, he marries Polina without a dowry, having nothing to his name. In the 19th century it was even a crime. Officials were given permission to marry. The husband must take responsibility for his wife. And Zhadov honestly tells Polina that they will earn their bread honestly, but she doesn’t know how. She strives to quickly leave the protection of her mother and gets married. And from this the whole tragedy is born.
Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov reproached Ostrovsky for saving Zhadov by writing such an ending - the arrest of Yusov and Vyshnevsky.
In the play “The Deep” Ostrovsky continues the theme of such a young man. Kiselnikov, unlike Zhadov, who managed to get married and have children, is forced to sacrifice himself for the well-being of his family. He commits a crime for which he receives money. He will die, he will be imprisoned.
Continuing the theme of Glumov from “Simplicity is enough for every wise man”, the man is a proteus - smart, evil. He knows how to stand up for himself. But in this case, a university education will play a cruel joke on him. If he were simpler, like Zhadov, neither so evil and smart, he would not have written this diary. And Glumov, understanding his situation and wanting to get out of this situation, takes care of his aunt, flatters him, etc., and in the end gets pierced. And he gives up his dreams of a better life forever. He will never carry out this scam of his again.
Ostrovsky will show us Glumov in “Mad Money” and we understand that he has achieved nothing.
Ostrovsky has a play, “The Characters Didn’t Mesh,” where a young man, Paul, marries a rich merchant’s wife in the hope of managing her wealth. But she quickly makes it clear that he will not receive the money. And they run away.
And for Glumov to have this happiness, he needs to be Balzaminov and marry the fool Belotelova, who agrees to bathe him in gold. But this is vaudeville. Fantasy game. And it is no coincidence that Ostrovsky introduces Glumov in “Mad Money” to show that he will not be happy. And in contrast to Vasilkov, who offers to multiply money and make it work, Glumov is going to marry money and of course nothing good awaits him.
And there is one more young man, Petya Meluzov in “talents and admirers” - Negina’s teacher. He is left with nothing and leaves so invincible. Declaring to fans. That you corrupt, and I enlighten.
Speaking about Meluzov, I remember Petya Trofimov. They are very similar and that is the impression. That Chekhov quotes Ostrovsky. Petya Trofimov is like the future of Petya Meluzov. He is an idealist and therefore will never achieve a positive result
Ostrovsky plays with images and as he writes new plays, one can trace the development of these images.
"Wolves and Sheep" (1868) is a play from life. Ostrovsky carried him out of the court chamber, where the case of Abbess Mitrophania, née Baroness Rosen, was being decided. She, like Murzavetskaya, was involved in forgery and practically robbed stupid merchants. This case was tried by a civil court, although usually the clergy did not allow their own to the state court. They had their own spiritual court. But the case was so loud that it was impossible to do otherwise. Ostrovsky dreamed of writing about the monastery, but censorship would not allow it. Clergy cannot be brought on stage. And he sets up such a monastery in a figurative sense. Murzavetskaya herself is in black, as are her hangers-on. And the conditions there are so strict and monastic.
This is the law of life. Someone is a wolf, someone is a sheep. And at some point they can switch roles (dialectical changes). Glafira turns from a sheep into a wolf. We think of Lynyaev as a sheep, but in the end he unravels all the crime of Murzavetskaya and finds the source of all the outrages happening around Kupavina. For all the wolves present in the play, the most important wolf, the Golden Eagles, appears. Murzavetskaya realizes that she has become a sheep and asks Berkutov to leave her, even if she’s a bad wolf.
Ostrovsky has many themes. There are many plays about theatre. From these plays we can judge the theater of the 19th century. What is theater like in the provinces? (“Forest”, “Talents and Fans”, “Guilty Without Guilt”)
Talent cannot break through, because fans buy it and try to humiliate and make it dependent, and only in the melodrama “Guilty Without Guilt” Kruchinin turns from a young suffering woman Lyubov Ivanovna Otradina into a brilliant actress, because will go through the path of loss and tragedy and ultimately gain the talent of an actress for whom nothing is scary. And in the end he will find a son. Ostrovsky understands that the theater is in a deplorable state, that three rehearsals are not enough for a production. He tried to help somehow. Make comments, but these are all crumbs. Once he asked to replace a torn backdrop for the play “Dream on the Volga” and on the day of the premiere he saw a backdrop with a winter landscape, and in his play it was summer...
Martynov (Tikhon Kabanov's first performer), Prov Sadovsky (Ostrovsky's closest friend) and Nikulina-Kositskaya are actors who formed in the 1st half of the 19th century and came to the theater before Ostrovsky. They idolized him for his plays.
Savina, Strepetova, Davydov, Varlamov, Lensky, Yuzhin, Shchepkin - become actors in imperial theaters, having at one time been provincial actors. Then they asked for a debut in the theater (they didn’t pay for the debut) and stayed in the capitals.
Ostrovsky does not like this situation. People without school are not even trained for the role. In 1738 a school (ballet and choir) was opened. Such schools are appearing in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Children from 8.9 years old were taken there and taught ballet. Ballet became the basis of the imperial school (this path was followed by Ermolova, Fedotova, Semenova, Martynov). Afterwards, you could choose 3 paths - ballet, drama acting, or becoming a theater artist (there were painting classes)
Tuberculosis was a common disease of 19th century actors. Dust, open fire. Dancing in vaudeville... actors die at the age of 40.
Ostrovsky observed this and dedicated his articles to actresses. In one of them, he compares Savina and Strepetova and writes that Savina, who can play up to 15 roles per season, is quite profitable for the theater, while Strepetova, who lives on stage and after the performance is carried away and then takes 2 weeks to come to her senses , it is not beneficial for the imperial theater. The public in the 19th century went to see the actor. And when the actor was ill, the play was filmed. There were no replacements. In 1865, Ostrovsky created an artistic circle. M.P. Sadovsky and his wife Olga Osipovna Lazareva (Sadovskaya) will be brought up in this circle. He will try to give schooling to those actors who were brought up on his dramaturgy. Ostrovsky is fighting the theatrical monopoly. He takes part in meetings and soon becomes convinced that everything is pointless. There everyone is looking for their own benefit, and not caring about the theater. And he comes up with the idea of creating his own theater.
In 1881 he received permission to create a folk theater. Private theater cannot be created. The theatrical monopoly does not allow this in Moscow. He is looking for a sponsor. And in 1982 the monopoly was abolished and private theaters grew in huge numbers and became competitors for Ostrovsky, so he abandoned the idea of a folk theater. And the only way he could help the theater was to go work there. He becomes the head of the repertoire and theater school. But it's hard for him. They don’t like him, he’s not comfortable, he’s not affectionate, he’s not principled. But he still begins to rebuild the theater, but in the summer of 86 he suddenly dies and the theater returns to its old habits. And the Moscow Art Theater, born 12 years later, will largely rely on the reforms that Ostrovsky intended to implement. First of all, he dreamed of a repertory theater. He wanted to create a Russian national theater because it is a sign of the coming of age of the nation.
The pinnacle of Russian drama of the period under review is the work of Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky (1823-1886). Ostrovsky’s first “big” comedy “Our own people - we will be numbered!” (1850) gave a clear idea of a new original theater, the Ostrovsky Theater. Evaluating this comedy, contemporaries invariably recalled the classics of Russian comedy - “The Minor” by Fonvizin, “Woe from Wit” by Griboyedov, “The Inspector General” by Gogol. With these “landmark” works of Russian drama, they put on a par the comedy “Bankrupt (“Our own people - we’ll be numbered!”).
Accepting Gogol's view on the meaning of social comedy, being attentive to the range of themes he posed in dramaturgy and the plots he introduced into this genre, Ostrovsky from the first steps of his literary path showed complete independence in the interpretation of modern conflicts. The motives that Gogol interpreted as secondary already in Ostrovsky’s early works become the nerve that determines the action and come to the fore.
In the early 50s, the playwright believed that modern social conflicts were at their greatest
degrees make themselves felt in the merchant environment. This class seemed to him to be a layer in which the past and present of society merged into a complex, contradictory unity. The merchant class, which has long played a significant role in the economic life of the country, and sometimes took part in political conflicts, is connected by many threads of family and business relations, on the one hand, with the lower strata of society (peasantry, philistinism), on the other, with the upper classes, in second half of the 19th century changed its appearance. He analyzes the vices that plague the merchant environment and which the writer exposes in his plays, revealing their historical roots and anticipating their possible manifestations in the future. Already in the title of the comedy “Our own people - we will be numbered!” the principle of homogeneity of its heroes is expressed. The oppressors and the oppressed in comedy not only form a single system, but often change places in it. A wealthy merchant, a resident of Zamoskvorechye (the most patriarchal part of patriarchal Moscow), convinced of his right to unaccountably control the fate of his family members, tyrannizes his wife, daughter and employees of his “institutions.” However, his daughter Lipochka and her husband Podkhalyuzin, a former clerk and favorite of Bolshov, “reward” him in full. They appropriate his capital and, having ruined his little brother, cruelly and cold-bloodedly send him to prison. Podkhalyuzin says about the Bolshovs: “It will be enough for them - they’ve done wonders in their lifetime, now it’s time for us!” This is how relationships develop between generations, between fathers and children. Progress here is less noticeable than continuity, and besides, Bolshov, for all his crude simplicity, turns out to be psychologically less primitive than his daughter and son-in-law. Accurately and vividly embodying in his characters the appearance of “modern vices and shortcomings noticed in the century,” the playwright sought to create types that have a universal human moral significance. “I wanted,” he explained, “for the public to brand vice with the name of Podkhalyuzin in the same way as they brand with the name of Harpagon, Tartuffe, Minor, Khlestakov and others.” Contemporaries compared Bolshov to King Lear, and Podkhalyuzin was called the “Russian Tartuffe.”
Alien to any kind of exaggeration, avoiding idealization, the author clearly outlines the contours of the figures he depicts and determines their scale. Bolshov’s horizons are limited to Zamoskvorechye; in his limited world he experiences all the feelings that a ruler, whose power is unlimited, experiences on a different scale. Power, strength, honor, greatness not only satisfy his ambition, but also overwhelm his feelings and tire him. He is bored, burdened by his power. This mood, combined with a deep belief in the steadfastness of patriarchal family foundations, in his authority as the head of the family, gives rise to a sudden impulse of Bolshov’s generosity, who gives everything he has acquired “to the shirt” to his daughter and Podkhalyuzin, who became her husband.
In this plot twist, the comedy about a malicious bankrupt and a cunning clerk comes close to Shakespeare's tragedy "King Lear" - the conflict of the pursuit of profit develops into a conflict of betrayed trust. However, the viewer cannot sympathize with Bolshov’s disappointment, experience it as tragic, just as he cannot sympathize with the disappointment of the matchmaker and the solicitor, who resold their services to Podkhalyuzin and made a mistake in their calculations. The play is in the comedy genre.
Ostrovsky's first comedy played a special role both in the creative destiny of the author and in the history of Russian drama. Subjected to a strict censorship ban after its publication in the magazine Moskvityanin (1850), it was not staged for many years. But it was this comedy that opened a new era in the understanding of the “laws of the stage” and heralded the emergence of a new phenomenon of Russian culture - Ostrovsky’s theater. Objectively, it contained the idea of a new principle of stage action, the behavior of an actor, new form recreating the truth of life on stage and theatrical entertainment. Ostrovsky appealed primarily to the mass audience, the “fresh public”, “which requires strong drama, major comedy, causing frank, loud laughter, hot, sincere feelings, alive and strong characters" The immediate reaction of the democratic spectator served as the playwright's criterion for the success of his play.
The first comedy amazed with its novelty to a greater extent than Ostrovsky’s subsequent plays, which made their way onto the theatrical stage and forced Ostrovsky to be recognized as a “repertoire playwright”: “The Poor Bride” (1852), “Don’t Get in Your Own Sleigh” (1853) and “Poverty is no vice” (1854).
“The Poor Bride” reflected, if not a change in the writer’s ideological position, then a desire to take a new approach to the problem of social comedy. The dramatic unity of the play is created by the fact that at its center stands a heroine whose position is socially typical. She seems to embody the general idea of the position of a young lady without a dowry. Each “line” of action demonstrates the attitude of one of the contenders for Marya Andreevna’s hand and heart
to her and represents a variant of the attitude of a man to a woman and the following from such an attitude female destiny. The generally accepted traditional forms of family relationships are inhumane. The behavior of the “suitors” and their view of the beauty who has no dowry does not promise her a happy life.
Thus, “The Poor Bride” also belongs to the accusatory direction of literature, which Ostrovsky considered most consistent with the character and mentality of Russian society. If Gogol believed that the “narrowness” of the “love plot” contradicts the tasks of social comedy, then Ostrovsky assesses its condition precisely through the depiction of love in modern society.
In “The Poor Bride,” while working on which Ostrovsky, by his own admission, experienced great creative difficulties, he managed to master some new techniques for constructing dramatic action, which he later applied mainly in plays with dramatic or tragic content. The pathos of the play is rooted in the experiences of the heroine, gifted with the ability to feel strongly and subtly, and in her position in an environment that cannot understand her. This construction of the drama required careful development feminine character and a convincing depiction of the typical circumstances in which the hero finds himself. In The Poor Bride, Ostrovsky has not yet succeeded in solving this creative problem. However, in the secondary line of the comedy an original image was found, independent of literary stereotypes, embodying the specific features of the position and mentality of a simple Russian woman (Dunya). The capacious, diversely outlined character of this heroine opened up in Ostrovsky’s work a gallery of images of simple-minded women, the wealth of whose spiritual world is “worth a lot.”
To give a voice to a representative of the lower, “non-Europeanized” social strata, to make him a dramatic and even tragic hero, to express the pathos of experiences on his behalf in a form that meets the requirements of the realistic style, i.e. so that his speech, gesture, and behavior are recognizable and typical , - such was the difficult task facing the author. In the works of Pushkin, Gogol, and especially the writers of the 40s, in particular Dostoevsky, artistic elements accumulated that could be useful to Ostrovsky in solving this specific problem.
In the early 50s, a circle of writers, ardent admirers of his talent, formed around Ostrovsky. They became employees, and over time, the “young editorial staff” of the Moskvityanin magazine. The neo-Slavophile theories of this circle contributed to the playwright’s increased interest in traditional forms of national life and culture and inclined him to idealize patriarchal relations. His ideas about social comedy, its means and structure. So, declaring in a letter to Pogodin: “It is better for a Russian person to rejoice, seeing himself on stage, than to be sad. Correctors will be found even without us,” the writer, in fact, formulated a new attitude to the tasks of comedy. The world comedy tradition, which Ostrovsky carefully studied, offered many examples of cheerful humorous comedy that affirmed the ideals of immediate, natural feelings, youth, courage, democracy, and sometimes freethinking.
Ostrovsky wanted to base a life-affirming comedy on folklore motifs and folk play traditions. The fusion of folk poetic, ballad and social plots can already be noted in the comedy “Don’t Get in Your Own Sleigh.” The plot about the disappearance, “disappearance” of a girl, most often a merchant’s daughter, and her abduction by a cruel seducer was borrowed from folklore and popular among romantics. In Russia it was developed by Zhukovsky (“Lyudmila”, “Svetlana”), Pushkin (“The Groom”, Tatyana’s dream in “Eugene Onegin”, “ Stationmaster"). The situation of the “abduction” of a simple girl by a person from a different social environment - a nobleman - was interpreted acutely in social terms by the writers of the “natural school”. Ostrovsky took this tradition into account. But the folklore and legendary ballad aspect was no less important for him than the social one. In subsequent plays of the first five years of the 50s, the importance of this element increases. In “Poverty is not a vice” and “Don’t live as you want,” the action takes place during calendar holidays, accompanied by numerous rituals, the origin of which goes back to ancient pagan beliefs, and the content is fed by myths, legends, and fairy tales.
And yet, in these plays by Ostrovsky, the legendary or fairy tale plot“sprouted” with modern problems. In “Don’t Get in Your Own Sleigh,” a collision arises as a result of an external invasion of a patriarchal environment, which is conceived as ignorant of significant internal contradictions, of a nobleman - a “hunter” for merchant brides with a rich dowry. In “Poverty is not a Vice,” the playwright is already drawing merchant environment as a world not free from serious internal conflicts.
Next to the poetry of folk rituals and holidays, he sees the hopeless poverty of workers, the bitterness of the worker’s dependence on the owner, children on their parents, the educated poor man on the ignorant moneybag. Ostrovsky also notes socio-historical changes that threaten the destruction of the patriarchal structure. In “Poverty is not a vice,” the older generation is already criticized, demanding unquestioning obedience from children; its right to unquestioned authority is called into question. The younger generation acts as representatives of the living and ever-renewing tradition of folk life, its aesthetics and ethics, and the old, repentant sinner, a disturber of peace in the family, who squandered capital “meteor” with the expressive name “Love”, acts as the herald of the rightness of youth. The playwright “instructs” this character to tell the words of truth to the unworthy head of the family; he assigns him the role of the person who miraculously unties all the tightly drawn knots of conflicts.
The apotheosis of Lyubim Tortsov at the end of the play, which aroused delight among the audience, brought upon the writer many reproaches and even ridicule from literary critics. The playwright entrusted the role of a bearer of noble feelings and a preacher of goodness to a man who was not only fallen in the eyes of society, but also a “clown.” For the author, the trait of “buffoonery” in Lyubim Tortsov was extremely important. In the Yuletide action, which plays out on stage at the time when the tragic matchmaking of the villainous rich man takes place, separating the lovers, Lyubim Tortsov plays the role of a traditional joker grandfather. At the moment when the mummers appear in the house and the orderly order of life of the closed, impervious to prying eyes of the merchant’s nest is disrupted, Lyubim Tortsov, a representative of the street, outside world, the crowd, becomes the master of the situation.
The image of Lyubim Tortsov combines two elements folk drama- comedy, with its buffoonery, wit, farcical techniques - "knees", buffoonery, on the one hand, and tragedy, generating an emotional explosion, allowing pathetic tirades addressed to the public, direct, open expression of grief and indignation - on the other.
Later, in a number of his works, Ostrovsky embodied the contradictory elements, the internal drama of the moral principle, and folk truth in “paired” characters leading an argument, dialogue, or simply “in parallel” setting out the principles of harsh morality and asceticism (Ilya - “Don’t live the way you want”; Afonya - “Sin and misfortune do not live on anyone”) and the precepts of folk humanism, mercy (Agathon - “Don’t live like that...”, grandfather Arkhip - “Sin and misfortune...”). In the comedy “The Forest” (1871), the universal moral principle of kindness, creativity, fantasy, love of freedom also appears in a dual guise: in the form of a high tragic ideal, the bearer of real, “grounded” manifestations of which is the provincial tragedian Neschastlivtsev, and in its traditionally comedic forms - denials, travesties, parodies, which are embodied in the provincial comedian Schastlivtsev. The idea that folk morality itself, the very highest moral concepts of good, are the subject of dispute, that they are mobile and that, existing forever, they are updated all the time, determines the fundamental features of Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy.
The action in his plays, as a rule, takes place in one family, among relatives or in a narrow circle of people associated with the family to which the characters belong. At the same time, since the beginning of the 50s, in the playwright’s works, conflicts are determined not only by intra-family relationships, but also by the state of society, the city, and the people. The action of many, perhaps most, plays takes place in the pavilion of a room or a house (“We’ll count our own people!”, “Poor Bride”). But already in the play “Not on My Sleigh...” one of the most dramatic episodes is transferred to a different setting, taking place in an inn, as if embodying the road, the wandering to which Dunya doomed herself after leaving her native home. The inn in “Don’t Live the Way You Want” has the same meaning. Here you meet wanderers coming to Moscow and leaving the capital, who are “driven” from home by grief, dissatisfaction with their situation and concern for loved ones. However, the inn is depicted not only as a refuge for travelers, but also as a place of temptation. There is revelry here, reckless fun, opposing the boredom of a decorous merchant family home. The suspicion of the city's inhabitants and the impenetrable isolation of their homes and families is contrasted with an open, windswept and festive freedom. The Maslenitsa “circling” in “Don’t Live That Way...” and the Christmas divination in “Poverty is not a Vice” predetermine the development of the plot. The dispute between antiquity and newness, which constitutes an important aspect of the dramatic conflict in Ostrovsky's plays of the early 50s, is interpreted ambiguously by him. Traditional forms of life are considered as eternally renewed, and only in this does the playwright see their viability. As soon as a tradition loses its ability to “deny itself”, to react to
Illustration:
Illustrations by P. M. Boklevsky for the comedies of A. N. Ostrovsky
Lithographs. 1859
living needs of modern people, so it turns into a dead, constraining form and loses its own living content. The old enters the new, into modern life, in which it can play the role of either a “fettering” element, oppressing its development, or a stabilizing element, ensuring the strength of the emerging novelty, depending on the content of the old that preserves the people’s life.
The clash between militant defenders of traditional forms of life and bearers of new aspirations, the will to free self-expression, to assert one’s own, personally developed and hard-won concept of truth and morality forms the core of the dramatic conflict in “The Thunderstorm” (1859), a drama that was assessed by contemporaries as a masterpiece of the writer and the most vivid embodiment of the public sentiment of the era of the fall of serfdom.
Dobrolyubov in his article “The Dark Kingdom” (1859) described Ostrovsky as a follower of Gogol, a critically thinking writer who objectively showed all the dark sides of life in modern Russia: the lack of legal consciousness, the unlimited power of elders in the family, the tyranny of the rich and powerful, the voicelessness of their victims, and interpreted this a picture of universal slavery as a reflection of the political system dominant in the country. After the appearance of “The Thunderstorm,” the critic supplemented his interpretation of Ostrovsky’s work with a significant point about the awakening of protest and spiritual independence among the people as an important motive for the playwright’s work at a new stage (“A Ray of Light in dark kingdom", 1860). He saw the embodiment of the awakening people in the heroine of “The Thunderstorm” Katerina - a creative, emotional nature and organically incapable of putting up with the enslavement of thoughts and feelings, with hypocrisy and lies.
Disputes about Ostrovsky's position, about his attitude to patriarchal life, to antiquity and new trends in people's life began during the writer's collaboration in Moskvityanin and did not stop after Ostrovsky became a permanent contributor to Sovremennik in 1856. However, even an ardent and consistent supporter of the view of Ostrovsky as a singer of ancient life and patriarchal family relationships, A. Grigoriev, in the article “Art and Morality” admitted that “the artist, responding to the questions of the time, first turned sharply to his former
in a negative manner... Now there was a step towards protest. And the protest for a new beginning of people’s life, for freedom of mind, will and feelings... this protest broke out boldly with the “Thunderstorm.”
Dobrolyubov, like A. Grigoriev, noted the fundamental novelty of “The Thunderstorm,” the completeness of its embodiment of the features of the writer’s artistic system and the organic nature of his entire creative path. He defined Ostrovsky's dramas and comedies as “plays of life.”
Ostrovsky himself, along with the traditional designations of the genres of his plays as “comedy” and “drama” (he, unlike his contemporary Pisemsky, did not use the definition of “tragedy”) gave indications of the uniqueness of their genre nature: “pictures from Moscow life” or “ pictures of Moscow life”, “scenes from village life”, “scenes from the life of the outback”. These subtitles meant that the subject of the image was not the story of one character, but an episode in the life of an entire social environment, which was determined historically and territorially.
In “The Thunderstorm,” the main action takes place between members of the Kabanov merchant family and their entourage. However, the events here are elevated to the rank of phenomena of a general order, the heroes are typified, the central characters are given bright, individual characters, and numerous people take part in the events of the drama. minor characters, creating a broad social background.
Features of the poetics of the drama: the scale of the images of its heroes, driven by convictions, passions and adamant in their manifestation, the significance of the “choral principle” in the action, the opinions of the city residents, their moral concepts and prejudices, symbolic and mythological associations, the fatal course of events - give “The Thunderstorm” genre features tragedy.
The unity and dialectic of the relationship between the house and the city are expressed in the drama plastically, by changing, alternating scenes taking place on the high bank of the Volga, from which the distant Trans-Volga fields are visible, on the boulevard, and scenes conveying the closed family life, enclosed in the stuffy rooms of the Kabanovsky house, meetings of heroes in a ravine near the shore, under the starry night sky - and at the closed gates of the house. Closed gates that do not allow outsiders to enter, and the fence of the Kabanovs’ garden behind the ravine separate the free world from family life merchant's house.
The historical aspect of the conflict, its correlation with the problem of national cultural traditions and social progress in “The Thunderstorm” are expressed especially intensely. Two poles, two opposing trends in people's life, between which the “lines of force” of conflict in the drama run, are embodied in the young merchant’s wife Katerina Kabanova and her mother-in-law, Marfa Kabanova, nicknamed Kabanikha for her tough and stern disposition. Marfa Kabanova is a convinced and principled keeper of antiquity, once and for all found and established norms and rules of life. She legitimizes customary forms of life as an eternal norm and considers it her highest right to punish those who have violated any customs as the laws of existence, since for her there is nothing big or small in this single and unchanging, perfect structure. Having lost an indispensable attribute of life - the ability to change and die, all customs and rituals in Kabanova’s interpretation turned into an eternal, frozen, meaningless form. Her daughter-in-law Katerina, on the contrary, is unable to perceive any action outside of its content. Religion, family and kinship relationships, even a walk over the Volga - everything that among the Kalinovites, and especially in the Kabanovs’ house, has turned into an outwardly observed ritual, for Katerina it is either full of meaning or unbearable. Katerina carries within herself the creative beginning of development. It is accompanied by the motif of flying and driving fast. She wants to fly like a bird, and she dreams about flying, she tried to sail away in a boat along the Volga, and in her dreams she sees herself racing in a troika. This desire to move in space expresses her willingness to take risks and boldly accept the unknown.
The ethical views of the people in “The Thunderstorm” appear not only as a dynamic, internally contradictory spiritual sphere, but as a split, tragically torn by antagonism area of irreconcilable struggle, entailing human sacrifices, giving rise to hatred that does not subside even over the grave (Kabanova utters over the corpse of Katerina : “It’s a sin to cry about her!”).
Monologue of the tradesman Kuligin about cruel morals precedes the tragedy of Katerina, and his reproach to the Kalinovites and appeal to higher mercy serve as her epitaph. He is echoed by the desperate cry of Tikhon, Kabanova’s son, Katerina’s husband, who realized too late the tragedy of his wife’s situation and his own powerlessness: “Mama, you ruined her!.. Good for you, Katya! Why did I stay in the world and suffer!”
The dispute between Katerina and Kabanikha in the drama is accompanied by the dispute between the self-taught scientist Kuligin and the rich tyrant merchant Dikiy. Thus, the tragedy of the desecration of beauty and poetry (Katerina) is complemented by the tragedy of enslavement
science searching for thoughts. The drama of a woman’s slavish position in the family, the trampling of her feelings in the world of calculation (Ostrovsky’s constant theme - “Poor Bride”, “Warm Heart”, “Dowry”) in “The Thunderstorm” is accompanied by a depiction of the tragedy of the mind in the “dark kingdom”. In “The Thunderstorm” this theme is carried by the image of Kuligin. Before “The Thunderstorm”, it was heard in “Poverty is not a vice” in the portrayal of the self-taught poet Mitya, in “A Profitable Place” - in the story of Zhadov and dramatic stories about the fall of the lawyer Dosuzhev, the poverty of the teacher Mykin, the death of the intellectual Lyubimov, and later in the comedy “The Truth Is Good” , but happiness is better” in the tragic situation of the honest accountant Platon Zybkin.
In “A Profitable Place” (1857), as in “The Thunderstorm,” the conflict arises as a consequence of incompatibility, mutual total rejection of two forces unequal in their capabilities and potential: an established force endowed with official power, on the one hand, and an unrecognized force, but expressing the new needs of society and the demands of people interested in meeting these needs, on the other.
The hero of the play “Profitable Place” Zhadov, a university student who intrudes into the environment of officials and denies, in the name of the law and, most importantly, his own moral sense, the relationships that have long been established in this environment, becomes the object of hatred not only of his uncle, an important bureaucrat, but also of the head of the office, Yusov. , and the petty official Belogubov, and the widow of the collegiate assessor Kukushkina. For all of them, he is a daring troublemaker, a freethinker who encroaches on their well-being. Abuses for selfish purposes, violation of the law are interpreted by administration representatives as government activity, and the requirement to comply with the letter of the law is a manifestation of unreliability.
The main opponent of the hero, Yusov, contrasts the “scientific”, university definition of the meaning of laws in the political life of society, assimilated by Zhadov, as well as his moral sense, with the knowledge of the actual existence of the law in the then Russian society and the attitude towards the law, “sanctified” by centuries-old everyday life and “practical morality” . The “practical morality” of society is expressed in the play in the naive revelations of Belogubov and Yusov, the latter’s confidence in his right to abuse. The official actually appears not as an executor or even as an interpreter of the law, but as a bearer of unlimited power, although divided among many. In his later play “Ardent Heart” (1869), Ostrovsky, in the scene of the conversation between the mayor Gradoboev and ordinary people, demonstrated the originality of such an attitude towards the law: “Gradoboev: It’s high to God, but it’s far from the Tsar... And I’m close to you, so I’m to you and the judge... If we judge you according to the laws, we have many laws... and the laws are all strict... So, dear friends, as you wish: should I judge you according to the laws or according to my soul, as God is in my heart put it down?..
In 1860, Ostrovsky conceived the historical poetic comedy “The Voevoda”, which, according to his plan, was to be included in the cycle of dramatic works “Nights on the Volga”, combining plays from modern folk life and historical chronicles. “The Voevoda” shows the roots of modern social phenomena, including the “practical” attitude to law, as well as the historical traditions of resistance to lawlessness.
In the 60-70s, the satirical element intensified in Ostrovsky’s work. He creates a number of comedies in which a satirical approach to reality prevails. The most significant of them are “Simplicity is Enough for Every Wise Man” (1868) and “Wolves and Sheep” (1875). Returning to the Gogolian principle of “pure comedy,” Ostrovsky revives and rethinks some of the structural features of Gogol’s comedy. In comedy, the characteristics of society and the social environment become of great importance. A “stranger” who penetrates into this environment, in moral and social terms, cannot be opposed to the society into which he ends up through misunderstanding or deception (“For every wise man...” cf. “The Inspector General”). The author uses a plot scheme about “rogues”, deceived by the “rogue” or misled by him (“Players” by Gogol - cf. “For Every Wise Man...”, “Wolves and Sheep”).
“For every wise man...” depicts the time of reforms, when timid innovations in the field of public administration and the very abolition of serfdom were accompanied by containment, “freezing” of the progressive process. In an atmosphere of distrust in democratic forces and persecution of radical figures who defended the interests of the people, renegadeism became common. A renegade and a hypocrite becomes central character Ostrovsky's social comedy. The hero is a careerist who infiltrates the environment of major officials, Glumov. He mocks the stupidity, tyranny and obscurantism of “statesmen”, the emptiness of liberal phrase-mongers, and the hypocrisy and debauchery of influential ladies. But he betrays and abuses his own
beliefs, distorts his moral sense. In an effort to make a brilliant career, he bows to the “masters of society” he despises.
Art system Ostrovsky assumed a balance of tragic and comedic principles, negation and ideal. In the 50s, such a balance was achieved by depicting, along with the bearers of the ideology of the “dark kingdom”, tyrants, young people with pure, warm hearts, and fair old men - bearers of folk morality. In the next decade, at a time when the depiction of tyranny in a number of cases acquired a satirical-tragic character, the pathos of a selfless desire for will, a feeling freed from conventions, lies, and coercion intensified (Katerina - “The Thunderstorm”, Parasha - “Warm Heart” , Aksyusha - “Forest”), the poetic background of the action acquired special significance: pictures of nature, the Volga expanses, the architecture of ancient Russian cities, forest landscapes, country roads (“Thunderstorm”, “Voevoda”, “Warm Heart”, “Forest”).
The manifestation in Ostrovsky’s work of a tendency to intensify satire and to develop purely satirical plots coincided with the period of his turning to historical and heroic themes. In historical chronicles and dramas, he showed the formation of many social phenomena and state institutions, which he considered an old evil of modern life and pursued in satirical comedies. However, the main content of his historical plays is the depiction of the movements of the masses during crisis periods in the life of the country. In these movements he sees deep drama, tragedy and high poetry of patriotic feat, mass manifestations of selflessness and selflessness. The playwright conveys the pathos of the transformation of a “little man,” immersed in ordinary prosaic concerns about his well-being, into a citizen consciously committing actions of historical significance.
The hero of Ostrovsky’s historical chronicles, be it “Kozma Zakharyich Minin-Sukhoruk” (1862, 1866) “Dmitry the Pretender and Vasily Shuisky” (1867), “Tushino” (1867), is the masses of the people, suffering, seeking truth, afraid of falling into “ sin” and lies, defending their interests and their national independence, fighting and rebelling, sacrificing their property for the sake of common interests. “The disorder of the land,” discord and military defeats, the intrigues of power-hungry adventurers and boyars, the abuses of clerks and governors - all these disasters primarily affect the fate of the people. Creating historical chronicles depicting “the destinies of the people,” Ostrovsky was guided by the traditions of the dramaturgy of Shakespeare, Schiller, and Pushkin.
On the eve of the 60s, Ostrovsky’s work appeared new topic, which increased the dramatic tension of his plays and changed the very motivation of the action in them. This is a theme of passion. In the dramas “The Thunderstorm”, “Sin and Misfortune”, Ostrovsky made the central character a bearer of an integral character, a deeply feeling person, capable of reaching tragic heights in his emotional response to lies, injustice, humiliation of human dignity, deception in love. In the early 70s, he created the dramatic fairy tale “The Snow Maiden” (1873), in which, depicting various manifestations and “forms” of love passion against the background of fantastic circumstances, he compares it with the life-giving and destructive forces of nature. This work was an attempt by the writer - an expert in folklore, ethnography, and folkloristics - to base a drama on reconstructed plots of ancient Slavic myths. Contemporaries noted that in this play Ostrovsky consciously follows the tradition of Shakespearean theater, especially such plays as “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “The Tempest”, the plot of which is symbolic and poetic in nature and is based on motifs from folk tales and legends.
At the same time, Ostrovsky’s “The Snow Maiden” was one of the first in European drama at the end of the 19th century. attempts to interpret modern psychological problems in a work, the content of which conveys ancient folk ideas, and the artistic structure provides for the synthesis of poetic words, music and plastic arts, folk dance and ritual (cf. Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, Wagner’s musical dramas, Hauptmann’s The Sunken Bell) .
Ostrovsky experienced an urgent need to expand the picture of the life of society, to update the “set” of modern types and dramatic situations from the beginning of the 70s, when the post-reform reality itself changed. At this time, in the playwright’s work, there was a tendency to complicate the structure of plays and the psychological characteristics of the characters. Before that, the heroes in Ostrovsky’s works were distinguished by their integrity; he preferred the well-established characters of people whose beliefs corresponded to their social practice. In the 70-80s, such persons were replaced in his works by contradictory, complex natures, experiencing heterogeneous influences, sometimes distorting their inner appearance. During the events depicted in the play
they change their views, become disappointed in their ideals and hopes. Remaining as before merciless towards supporters of routine, depicting them satirically both when they show stupid conservatism and when they lay claim to the reputation of mysterious, original personalities, to the “title” of liberals, Ostrovsky depicts with deep sympathy the true bearers of the idea of enlightenment and humanity. But in his later plays he often depicts these beloved heroes in an ambivalent light. These heroes express high “knightly”, “Schiller” feelings in a comic, “lowered” form, and their real, tragic situation is softened by the author’s humor (Neschastlivtsev - “Forest”, Korpelov - “Labor Bread”, 1874; Zybkin - “Truth - good, but happiness is better”, 1877; Meluzov - “Talents and Admirers”, 1882). The main place in Ostrovsky's later plays is occupied by the image of a woman, and if previously she was portrayed as a victim of family tyranny or social inequality, now she is a person who presents her demands to society, but shares its delusions and bears her share of responsibility for the state of public morals. The woman of the post-reform era ceased to be a “temple” recluse. In vain do the heroines of the plays “The Last Sacrifice” (1877) and “The Heart is Not a Stone” (1879) try to “seclude themselves” in the silence of their home, and here they are overtaken by modern life in the form of prudent, cruel businessmen and adventurers who consider the beauty and very personality of a woman as "application" to capital. Surrounded by successful businessmen and losers dreaming of success, she cannot always distinguish true values from imaginary ones. The playwright peers with condescending sympathy at the new attempts of her contemporaries to gain independence, noting their mistakes and everyday inexperience. However, he is especially dear to subtle, spiritual natures, women striving for creativity, moral purity, proud and strong in spirit Kruchinina - “Guilty Without Guilt”, 1884).
IN best drama writer of this period “Dowry” (1878) a modern woman, who feels like an individual, independently makes important life decisions, is faced with the cruel laws of society and can neither reconcile with them nor oppose new ideals to them. Being under the charm of a strong man, a bright personality, she does not immediately realize that his charm is inseparable from the power that wealth gives him, and from the merciless cruelty of the “capital collector.” Larisa's death is a tragic way out of the insoluble moral contradictions of the time. The tragedy of the heroine’s situation is aggravated by the fact that during the events depicted in the drama, experiencing bitter disappointments, she herself changes. The falsity of the ideal, in the name of which she was ready to make any sacrifices, is revealed to her. In all its ugliness, the position to which it is doomed is revealed - the role of an expensive thing. The rich are fighting for its possession, confident that beauty, talent, a spiritually rich personality - everything can be bought. The death of the heroine of “The Dowry” and Katerina in “The Thunderstorm” mark a verdict on a society that is unable to preserve the treasure of an inspired personality, beauty and talent; it is doomed to moral impoverishment, to the triumph of vulgarity and mediocrity.
In Ostrovsky's later plays, the comedic colors that helped to recreate social spheres separated from each other, the life of different classes, differing in their way of life and way of speech, gradually faded. Rich merchants, industrialists and representatives of commercial capital, noble landowners and influential officials form a single society in late XIX V. Noting this, Ostrovsky at the same time sees the growth of the democratic intelligentsia, which is presented in his latest works no longer in the form of lonely eccentric dreamers, but as a certain established environment with its own way of working life, its own ideals and interests. Ostrovsky attached great importance to the moral influence of representatives of this environment on society. He considered serving art, science, and education to be the high mission of the intelligentsia.
Ostrovsky's dramaturgy in many respects contradicted the cliches and canons of European, especially modern French, dramaturgy with its ideal of a “well-made” play, complex intrigue and a tendentiously unambiguous solution to straightforwardly posed topical problems. Ostrovsky had a negative attitude towards sensational and “topical” plays, towards the oratorical declarations of their heroes and theatrical effects.
Chekhov rightly considered the plots characteristic of Ostrovsky to be “even, smooth, ordinary life, as it really is.” Ostrovsky himself has repeatedly argued that the simplicity and vitality of the plot are the greatest merit of any literary work. The love of young people, their desire to unite their destinies, overcoming material calculations and class prejudices, the struggle for existence and the thirst for spiritual
independence, the need to protect one’s personality from the encroachments of those in power and the pangs of pride of the humiliated “
1. Brief biographical information.
2. The most famous plays by Ostrovsky; characters and conflicts.
3. The significance of Ostrovsky’s creativity.
The future playwright A. N. Ostrovsky was born in 1823. His father served in the city court. At the age of eight, Ostrovsky lost his mother. The father married for the second time. Left to his own devices, the boy became interested in reading. After graduating from high school, A. N. Ostrovsky studied for several years at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University, then served in the judiciary. It should be noted that the professional experience gained played a big role in Ostrovsky’s subsequent literary work. The deep knowledge of folk life that we find in Ostrovsky’s plays is associated with childhood impressions; Apparently, the playwright owes much of his expansion of ideas about the life of Muscovites to his unmarried wife Agafya Ivanovna, with whom he met in the mid-50s. After her death, Ostrovsky remarried (1869).
During his lifetime, Ostrovsky achieved not only fame, but also material wealth. In 1884, he was appointed to the position of head of the repertoire department of Moscow theaters. A. N. Ostrovsky died in 1886 on his Shchelykovo estate. However, interest in Ostrovsky's works did not fade away after his death. And to this day, many of his plays are successfully performed on the stages of Russian theaters.
What is the secret of the popularity of Ostrovsky's plays? Probably the fact is that the characters of his heroes, despite the flavor of a certain era, at all times remain modern in their core, in their deep essence. Let's look at this with examples.
One of the first plays that brought Ostrovsky wide fame is the play “Our People - We Will Be Numbered,” which was originally called “Bankrupt.” As already mentioned, Ostrovsky at one time served in court. The plot of "Bankrupt" was developed based on real cases from judicial practice: the fraud of the merchant Bolshov, who declared himself insolvent in order not to pay his debts, and the reciprocal fraud of his son-in-law and daughter, who refused to buy his “daddy” out of the debt hole. Ostrovsky in this play clearly shows the patriarchal life and morals of the Moscow merchants: “Mama has seven Fridays a week; Daddy, even if he’s not drunk, is silent, but if he’s drunk, he’ll kill him, no matter what.” The playwright reveals a deep knowledge of human psychology: the portraits of the tyrant Bolshov, the swindler Podkhalyuzin, Lipochka, who imagines herself as an “educated young lady,” and other characters are very realistic and convincing.
It is important to note that in the play “Our People - We Will Be Numbered,” Ostrovsky raised a theme that became cross-cutting for all of his work: this is the theme of the destruction of the traditional patriarchal way of life, a change in the essence of human relations, a change in value priorities. Interest in folk life was also manifested in a number of Ostrovsky’s plays: “Don’t sit in your own sleigh,” “Poverty is not a vice,” “Don’t live the way you want.”
It should be noted that not all Ostrovsky's plays have a plausible, realistic ending. A happy resolution of a conflict sometimes looks deliberate, not entirely consistent with the characters’ characters, as, for example, in the plays “Poverty is not a vice” and “Pourable Apples”. However, such utopian “happy endings” do not reduce the high artistic level of Ostrovsky’s plays. However, one of Ostrovsky’s most famous works was the drama “The Thunderstorm,” which can well be called a tragedy. In fact, this play is deeply tragic not only because of the death of the main character in the finale, but because of the intractability of the conflict shown by Ostrovsky in The Thunderstorm. One could even say that in “The Thunderstorm” there are not one, but two conflicts: the antagonism of Katerina and her mother-in-law Marfa Ignatievna (Kabanikha), as well as Katerina’s internal conflict. Usually literary scholars, following N.A. Dobrolyubov, call Katerina “a ray of light in a dark kingdom,” contrasting her with Kabanikha and other characters in the play. There is no doubt that Katerina’s character has worthy qualities. However, these qualities become the cause of the internal conflict of Ostrovsky’s heroine. Katerina is unable to either meekly accept her fate, patiently waiting for the time when she could become the second Kabanikha and give free rein to her character, or enjoy secret meetings with her beloved, outwardly showing an example of obedience to her husband and mother-in-law. The main character of “The Thunderstorm” surrenders to her feelings; however, in her heart she considers this a sin and is tormented by remorse. Katerina does not have the strength to resist a step that she herself considers sinful, but her voluntary admission of her wrongdoing in the eyes of her mother-in-law does not in the least reduce her guilt.
But are the characters of Katerina and her mother-in-law really that different? Kabanikha, of course, is a type of complete tyrant who, despite his ostentatious piety, recognizes only his own will. However, it can be said about Katerina that in her actions she does not take anything into account - neither decency, nor prudence, nor even the laws of religion. “Eh, Varya, you don’t know my character! Of course, God forbid this happens! And if I’m tired of being here, they won’t hold me back by any force,” she sincerely confesses to her husband’s sister. The main difference between Katerina is that she does not want to hide her actions. “You’re kind of tricky, God bless you! But in my opinion: do whatever you want, as long as it’s sewn and covered,” Varvara is surprised. But it’s unlikely that the girl came up with this herself. Obviously, she caught this worldly “wisdom” in the hypocritical atmosphere of her mother’s house. The theme of the collapse of the traditional way of life in “The Thunderstorm” sounds especially poignant - both in the ominous forebodings of Katerina, and in the melancholy sighs of Kabanikha dedicated to the passing “old times”, and in the menacing prophecies of the crazy lady, and in the gloomy stories of the wanderer Feklushi about the approaching end of the world. Katerina’s suicide is also a manifestation of the collapse of patriarchal values, which she betrayed.
The theme of the collapse of the values of “old times” in many of Ostrovsky’s plays is refracted into the theme of careerism and the thirst for profit. The hero of the play “Simplicity is enough for every wise man,” the cunning cynic Glumov, is even charming in his own way. In addition, one cannot fail to recognize his intelligence and ingenuity, which, of course, will help him get out of the unpleasant situation that has arisen as a result of the exposure of his machinations. Images of calculating businessmen appear more than once in Ostrovsky’s plays. These are Vasilkov from “Mad Money” and Berkutov from “Wolves and Sheep”.
In the play “The Forest” the theme of decline is again heard, but not of the patriarchal merchant way of life, but of the gradual destruction of the foundations of the life of the nobles. We see the nobleman Gurmyzhsky in the image of the provincial tragedian Neschastlivtsev, and his aunt, instead of taking care of the fate of her nephew and niece, thoughtlessly spends money on the subject of her late love interest.
It is necessary to note Ostrovsky’s plays, which can rightfully be called psychological dramas, for example, “Dowry”, “Talents and Admirers”, “Guilty Without Guilt”. The characters in these works are ambiguous, multifaceted personalities. For example, Paratov from “The Dowry” is a brilliant gentleman, a secular man who can easily turn the head of a romantic young lady, the “ideal man” in the eyes of Larisa Ogudalova, but at the same time he is a calculating businessman and a cynic for whom nothing is sacred: “U I, Mokiy Parmenych, have nothing cherished; If I find a profit, I’ll sell everything, anything.” Karandyshev, Larisa’s fiancé, is not just a petty official, a “little man,” a “straw” that Larisa tried to grab onto in despair, but also a person with painfully wounded pride. And about Larisa herself, we can say that she is a subtle, gifted person, but she does not know how to soberly evaluate people and treat them calmly and pragmatically.
Finally, it should be noted that Ostrovsky firmly established himself in literature and performing arts as a writer who laid down realistic traditions in the Russian theater, a master of everyday and psychological prose of the 19th century. The plays “Columbus of Zamoskvorechye,” as critics called Ostrovsky, have long become classics of Russian literature and theater.
A.N. Ostrovsky considered the emergence of the national theater a sign of the coming of age of the nation. It is no coincidence that this “coming of age” falls in the middle of the 19th century, when, through the efforts of the national playwright and his companions, the domestic repertoire was created and the ground was prepared for the emergence of a national theater, which could not exist, having in reserve only a few dramas by Fonvizin, Griboedov, Pushkin and Gogol.
Ostrovsky found himself at the center of dramatic art of that time. He set the tone and outlined the main paths along which the development of Russian drama took place.
Our dramaturgy owes its unique national appearance to Ostrovsky. It is not surprising that Ostrovsky begins his writing career with the essay “Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky Resident” and that his first plays consist of cycles of everyday scenes, with many not yet developed, but already ripening conflicts that are captured in scenes gravitating towards the epic throughout their completeness.
Already in the early period of his creativity, a characteristic feature of Ostrovsky’s dramatic talent was determined, which later gave Dobrolyubov a reason to call the writer’s scenes, comedies and dramas “plays of life.”
Genetically, Ostrovsky’s early dramaturgy is usually associated with the prose of the “natural school”, with a physiological essay during the crisis of this genre. And indeed, by the end of the 1840s, the narrator in the essays and stories of the “natural school” radically changed. He is no longer in a hurry to express his point of view on current events, and does not interfere in the living flow of life. On the contrary, he prefers to “shush himself”, to turn into a chronicler, objectively and impartially recreating the facts. The artistic world of realistic prose is becoming more and more
Already contemporary criticism of Ostrovsky also pointed to the playwright’s adherence to the Gogolian tradition. The first comedy “Our people - let's die!” (1850), which brought
Ostrovsky's fame and well-deserved literary success were ranked among Gogol's works by his contemporaries and called "Dead Souls" by the merchants. The influence of the Gogolian tradition in “Our People...” is truly great. At first, none of the characters in the comedy evoke any sympathy. It seems that, like Gogol’s “The Inspector General,” Ostrovsky’s only “positive hero” is laughter.
However, as the plot moves towards the denouement, new motives that are not characteristic of Gogol appear. In the play, two merchant generations collide: “fathers” and “children.” The difference between them affects even speaking names and surnames: Bolshov - from peasant bolshak, head of the family, merchant of the first generation, a man in the recent past. He traded in sheep on Balchug, good people They called him Samsoshka and fed him slaps on the head. Having become rich, Bolshov squandered the people's moral “capital”.
But funny and vulgar at the beginning of the comedy, Bolshov grows up towards its finale. When family feelings are desecrated by children, when the only daughter spares ten kopecks to creditors and with a light conscience accompanies her father to prison, a suffering man wakes up in Bolshov: “Tell me, daughter: go, you old devil, into the pit! Yes, into the hole! To jail him, the old fool. Let's get to work! Don't chase more, be happy with what you have< … >You know, Lazarus, Judas - after all, he also sold Christ for money, just as we sell our conscience for money...”
In the finale of the comedy, tragic motives break through the vulgar life. Scolded by children, deceived and expelled, the merchant Bolshov resembles King Lear from the Shakespearean tragedy of the same name.
Inheriting Gogol's traditions, Ostrovsky moved forward. If in Gogol all the characters in The Government Inspector are equally soulless, and their soullessness explodes from within only with Gogol’s laughter, then in Ostrovsky, in a soulless world, sources of living human feelings are revealed.
Ostrovsky's realism moves in the general mainstream of the historical and literary process of the late 1840s - early 1850s. During this period, Turgenev, with his “Notes of a Hunter,” adds to the gallery of Gogol’s “dead souls” a gallery of living souls, and Dostoevsky, in the novel “Poor People,” polemicizing with Gogol’s “The Overcoat,” reveals a rich inner world in the poor official Makar Devushkin.
Simultaneously with his literary brethren, Ostrovsky returns to the stage complex human characters, suffering souls, and “hot hearts.” The conflict between the “tyrant” and the “victim” makes it possible for Ostrovsky to psychologically enrich the characters’ characters. The comedy “The Poor Bride” (1851) echoes Gogol’s “Marriage” - both here and there condemnation of inhumane marriages. But in Ostrovsky a person appears who suffers from this callousness. The dramatic conflict in the play changes: there is a clash between the pure desires of people and the dark forces that block the path to these desires..
Psychologically complicating the characters of the characters, filling the drama with rich lyrical content, Ostrovsky follows not Gogol, not the writers of the “natural school,” but Pushkin and Shakespeare.
Ostrovsky worshiped the great English playwright of the Late Renaissance throughout his entire creative career. This is evidenced by letters, theater notes, translations of Shakespeare, as well as echoes of Shakespearean techniques and motifs in the plays of the Russian national playwright.
It is symbolic that death found Ostrovsky translating Shakespeare’s drama Antony and Cleopatra.
In the mid-1850s, the view of merchant life in the first comedy “We Will Be Numbered” already seems to Ostrovsky “young and too harsh... It is better for a Russian person to rejoice when he sees himself on stage than to be sad. Correctors will be found even without us. In order to have the right to correct the people without offending them, you need to show them that you know the good in them; This is what I’m doing now, combining the sublime with the comic.”
In the plays “Don’t Get in Your Own Sleigh” (1853), “Poverty is not a Vice” (1854), “Don’t Live the Way You Want” (1855), Ostrovsky depicts mainly the bright, poetic sides of merchant life.
Behind the social changes in the life of the merchants, who are losing touch with the fundamental foundations of folk morality, Ostrovsky’s national forces and elements of life arise here. We are talking about the breadth of the Russian character, about the two extreme poles of his nature - meek and balanced, represented in epics by Ilya Muromets, and predatory, self-willed, personified by Vasily Buslaev. In the struggle between these poles, the truth ultimately remains with the first: Russian people are designed in such a way that sooner or later a saving, bright, pacifying principle awakens in him.
Happy endings in Ostrovsky’s “Slavophile” dramas are motivated not only by social, but mainly by national reasons. In a Russian person, despite social circumstances, there is an internal support associated with the fundamental foundations of national life, with thousand-year-old Orthodox Christian shrines. The moral solution of social problems significantly changes the composition of Ostrovsky's plays of this period. It is built like a parable, a clear contrast between good and evil, light and dark principles.
Ostrovsky is convinced that such a composition corresponds to the national characteristics of the Russian people. An example of this is folk performances, in which constantly
there is a didactic, moralizing element. Ostrovsky consciously focuses his plays on the tastes of the democratic audience.
Ostrovsky explains the very possibility of sudden enlightenment of the soul of a Russian person, clouded by vicious passions, by the breadth of Russian nature. He finds confirmation of the poetics of sudden changes in human characters in folk tales and folk dramas.
There is a point of view that in the plays of the Slavophile period Ostrovsky idealized merchants and retreated from realism. But the artistic value of these plays lies precisely in the fact that Ostrovsky, occupying one of the leading places in literary process of his time, took a decisive step in the development of realism, moving away from the precepts of the “natural school”.
The heroes of his plays are no longer limited to what their “environment” shapes them. Neither Rusakov, nor Gordey Tortsov, nor his brother Lyubim fit into the usual social line of merchant morals.
They may act unexpectedly. Here Ostrovsky grasped the new relationship between personality and environment that the era brought to Russian literature mid-19th century.
In the comedy “Profitable Place” (1857), Ostrovsky shows that the hopes of Russian liberals for an enlightened official are good-natured, that the sources of bribery and embezzlement lie not in vicious people, but in the social system itself, which gives rise to bureaucracy.
Ostrovsky sympathizes with the honest official Zhadov. In creating the image of this hero, he relies on the traditions of Griboyedov’s comedy “Woe from Wit” and on the image of Chatsky in it. But at the same time, Ostrovsky highlights the youthful enthusiasm and naive ardor of Zhadov’s convictions. A sober realist, Ostrovsky warns the liberal intelligentsia about the illusory nature of the naive belief that an enlightened official can radically change the bureaucratic world.
Ostrovsky's works capture an epoch-making conflict of tragic intensity: the collapse of traditional social and spiritual ties in the county town and the Russian village, the birth in the process of this thunderous collapse of a strong national character.
At first glance, “The Thunderstorm” is an everyday drama, continuing the tradition of Ostrovsky’s previous plays. But now the playwright raises everyday life to the heights of tragedy. That is why he poetizes the language of the characters. We are present at the very birth of tragic content from the depths of Russian provincial life. The people of “Thunderstorm” live in a special state of the world: the supports holding back the old order have been shaken.
The first action introduces us to the pre-storm atmosphere of life. The temporary triumph of the old only increases tension. It matures and thickens towards the end of the first act. Even nature, as in the folk song, responds to this: the heat and stuffiness are replaced by a thunderstorm approaching Kalinov.
In Ostrovsky's Russian tragedy, two opposing cultures collide, generating a thunderstorm, and the confrontation between them goes deep into our history. A tragic collision is taking place between two tendencies in historical Orthodoxy, brought to their logical conclusion and self-denial - the legalistic, “world-denying” one, and the gracious, “world-accepting” one. Radiating spiritual light, Katerina is far from the harsh asceticism and dead formalism of Domostroevsky rules and regulations; she came to Kalinov from a family where grace still reigns over the law.
For the rich strata of merchants, in order to preserve their millions, it is advantageous to strengthen and take to the extreme precisely the world-denying bias, which makes it easier for them “under the guise of piety” to do deeds that are far from holy.
The meaning of the tragic collision in “The Thunderstorm” cannot be reduced only to social conflict. The national playwright caught in it the symptoms of the deepest religious crisis approaching Russia, the deep origins of the great religious tragedy of the Russian people, the consequences of which produced catastrophic results in the 20th century.
The playwright opens here a theme that will turn out to be one of the leading ones in Russian literature of his time. Echoes of two oppositely charged poles of Russian
The lives that gave rise to the thunderstorm in Ostrovsky’s “Russian tragedy” run in alarming flashes across the entire field of our classical literature of the second half of the 19th century.
We feel them in the clash of the “Bolkonsky” and “Karataevsky” principles in “War and Peace”, in the conflict of Father Ferapont with the elder Zosima in “The Brothers Karamazov”, in the dispute with Dostoevsky of the religious philosopher Konstantin Leontyev, in the conflict of Vera with her grandmother and Mark Volokhov in “The Precipice” by Goncharov, in the Christian motifs of Nekrasov’s poetry, in “The Golovlevs” and “Fairy Tales” by Saltykov-Shchedrin, in the religious drama of L.N. Tolstoy.
Breaking with the world of the Kabanovs, Katerina finds salvation in the spiritual and moral atmosphere that arose in Rus' even before the adoption of Christianity. The system of spiritual values living in the Russian folklore consciousness, associated with paganism and going back to prehistoric times, was a constant source of temptation and “seduction.”
There could not be complete identity between ancient paganism and Christianity, and therefore repulsion from the imperfect manifestations of historical Christianity always gave rise to the danger of the people’s consciousness leaving the circle of dogmatic Orthodox Christian ideas.
Katerina’s artistically gifted nature falls precisely into this “Russian temptation” at the end of the tragedy. At the same time, Ostrovsky does not think national character without this powerful and fruitful poetic fundamental principle, which is an inexhaustible source artistic imagery and preserving in pristine purity the heartfelt instincts of Russian Philokalia. That is why, after her death, which resembles a voluntary departure into the natural world, Katerina retains all the signs that, according to folk beliefs, distinguished a holy person from a mere mortal: she is dead as if she were alive. “And exactly, shy guys, like a living thing! Only on the temple there is such a small wound, and there is only one drop of blood.”
The death of Katerina in the popular perception is the death of a righteous woman. “Here’s your Katerina,” says Kuligin. - Do what you want with her! Her body is here, take it; but the soul is now not yours: it is now before the Judge, Who is more merciful than you!”